Senate Bill 0137 in MI. - License to bully given "religious and/or moral conviction"

[Double Trouble]

Why would discrimination against race not be able to qualify as a "moral conviction" if discrimination against sexual orientation counts? Truly believing that black people are lazy isn't a reasonable position but "homosexuality is a choice" is?

We're not talking about discrimination, we're talking about someone expressing an opinion. Whether it's true or right or not is irrelevant. Race is not something one can change or control. Sexual orientation might not be either, but behavior most definitely is. Most (all?) religions teach that homosexuality as a behavior is wrong (or "sin"). You don't have to agree with it or like it, but they have a right to believe what they believe just like you have a right to believe what you believe.

Your last paragraph doesn't make any sense. Is the whole concept of bullying bunk or can it sometimes be important?

Real bullying is an issue. Bullying as it's interpreted and defined nowadays in our hyper PC society is bullshit and amounts to the notion that nobody should ever be offended or have something mean said to them. Everyone needs to understand that you don't have the right to be offended, and you don't have a right to prevent someone else from stating an opinion just because you don't like it.

For the record, I agree with the notion in general no one has the right not to be offended but I'm quite okay with punishing children for saying awful things

What do you consider "awful things"? Who gets to decide what that is? Isn't that a very slippery slope in terms of allowing people to say only those things that someone else deems "not awful"? It's a very complicated issue with no easy answer, and I generally err on the side of freedom for all as long as laws are followed.

Maybe not for a single instance, but repeated verbal abuse, especially by multiple parties, is serious bullying and needs to treated as such.

Just as with 'awful'.... what exactly is "verbal abuse"? Is me calling someone a dumbass verbal abuse? How about calling them a fatass? Or a slacker? A moron? How about calling someone a dickhead? A slut? Is there some magical list of things that one is not allowed to call someone else? Or, is it up to the whims of someone else to subjectively decide?

It's a thorny issue, one that schools are grappling with all around the country on a daily basis. They have to walk a fine line to balance the rights of students to learn in a constructive environment with the rights of students to have and express their opinion -- even if it's not popular.

I think this bill tries to strike a reasonable balance of protecting religious belief and freedom of speech while allowing the school to create restrictions.

 

[Moonbeam]

Did you even read what you quoted? Try it again champ, I didn't address the atheist vs. the anti-gay bigot. At all.

You said:

"So Moonbeam, a Jew/Muslim/Christian that tells a homosexual that being gay is a sin is bad, but an atheist telling a person of faith that they are a moron for having religious/spiritual beliefs is ok?"

You speak against bigotry and practice it as well? How bizarre...

And he said what you quoted:

"Fallacy. Intolerance is one thing that it is acceptable to be intolerant of. You're saying that being critical of a bigot is a form of intolerance. While that would be awfully convenient for bigots if true, it that doesn't work."

So where does he say you addressed issue of the atheist vs. the anti-gay bigot?

 

[Moonbeam]

If you would like to discuss my possible mis-use of words or improper grammar, please use the PM function of the forums. Such discussions are not on topic and detract from the thread. If you have a response to the content of my post please post it here so we can continue the topic of the thread.

I don't give a shit about your grammar or your spelling. You thread crapped when you made your inane remark that a like for the color blue is bigotry. Are you three. Your comment lacked any intellectual SINCERITY. It was STUPID.

 

[Jhhnn]

We're not talking about discrimination, we're talking about someone expressing an opinion. Whether it's true or right or not is irrelevant. Race is not something one can change or control. Sexual orientation might not be either, but behavior most definitely is. Most (all?) religions teach that homosexuality as a behavior is wrong (or "sin"). You don't have to agree with it or like it, but they have a right to believe what they believe just like you have a right to believe what you believe.

So, uhh, gay people should refrain from acting gay or from having sex to satisfy your prudish prejudice? They should refrain from the kind of public displays of their sexuality or even private consensual acts that heteros enjoy? Really?

 

[Ichigo]

We're not talking about discrimination, we're talking about someone expressing an opinion. Whether it's true or right or not is irrelevant. Race is not something one can change or control. Sexual orientation might not be either, but behavior most definitely is. Most (all?) religions teach that homosexuality as a behavior is wrong (or "sin"). You don't have to agree with it or like it, but they have a right to believe what they believe just like you have a right to believe what you believe.



Real bullying is an issue. Bullying as it's interpreted and defined nowadays in our hyper PC society is bullshit and amounts to the notion that nobody should ever be offended or have something mean said to them. Everyone needs to understand that you don't have the right to be offended, and you don't have a right to prevent someone else from stating an opinion just because you don't like it.



What do you consider "awful things"? Who gets to decide what that is? Isn't that a very slippery slope in terms of allowing people to say only those things that someone else deems "not awful"? It's a very complicated issue with no easy answer, and I generally err on the side of freedom for all as long as laws are followed.




Just as with 'awful'.... what exactly is "verbal abuse"? Is me calling someone a dumbass verbal abuse? How about calling them a fatass? Or a slacker? A moron? How about calling someone a dickhead? A slut? Is there some magical list of things that one is not allowed to call someone else? Or, is it up to the whims of someone else to subjectively decide?

It's a thorny issue, one that schools are grappling with all around the country on a daily basis. They have to walk a fine line to balance the rights of students to learn in a constructive environment with the rights of students to have and express their opinion -- even if it's not popular.

I think this bill tries to strike a reasonable balance of protecting religious belief and freedom of speech while allowing the school to create restrictions.

Of course context matters. Like I said, if someone calls you a name once, whatever. If it's repeated over and over, such that an overweight kid gets called fatass instead of his/her real name almost every schoolday, then it's a problem. I don't think we disagree here, that every situation needs its own discretion; you might just be looking for an argument.

Religion teaching that homosexuality is a perverse behaviour shouldn't be something that's legally protected. I find it revealing that you don't want to consider a parallel between race and sexual orientation, two things that have been demonstrated to be decided at birth. Either you can protect discrimination in public schools on both conditions equally or not at all (hint: the former option is the correct one). The fact that you are playing semantics with the word "discrimination" and trying to push the thesis that racism is intolerable while discrimination based on sexual orientation has to be accepted is a strange and inconsistent conclusion.

 

[finglobes]

Homosexuality is the last frontier of equal rights for minorities.

Gay people are a naturally occurring % of the human race, and have been since the beginning. It's like eye color or skin color or being short or tall. They are what they are, and fearing or belittling them is the same thing as fearing or belittling blacks, jews, brown people or blondes.

The statute just gives haters an excuse and cover for being haters. When called on it, they'll just claim it's their deeply held moral conviction, as if they actually have any.

That doesn't make any sense. Being tall is a benign characteristic a person can't choose to participate in. Men sodomizing each other is a behaviour that does not have to be engaged in. Men and women can pass on the same deleterious behaviour.

Homosexuals hijacked the language of the civil movement. You see illegal immigrants now doing the same thing. People break into the country and then demand health-care, in-state tuition etc. No rationale civil rights sensibility protects sexual behaviours or any other kind of behaviour . Alcoholics could say they were "born that way" and protest the unfairness of losing jobs etc.

All these bullying bills are a charade set up by homosexual political groups to control whats going on in schools. Millions of kids get bullied for many reasons and yet homosexuals are at the front of the artificial bullying balloon being floated by the media.

There is NO homosexual suicide epidemic. Teen suicides are DOWN a lot since the 80s and 90's. Nobody knows why most people kill themselves and stats claiming how many homosexual suicides there are are contrived - usually based on a flawed study by a homosexual San Fran social worker.

For years kids were allowed to bully and misbehave in schools. Bullies were essentially seen as "victims too" and teachers could hardly do anything to them. Now the SAME people who protected bullies want to enact onerous laws against anyone not instep with the homosexual advance. The homosexual groups are themselves the biggest bullies around and people are starting to realize that.

 

[Jhhnn]

That doesn't make any sense. Being tall is a benign characteristic a person can't choose to participate in. Men sodomizing each other is a behaviour that does not have to be engaged in. Men and women can pass on the same deleterious behaviour.

You merely illustrate the crux of the problem in defining different as deleterious. Gay sex is no more or less deleterious than hetero sex.

 

[zsdersw]

No rationale civil rights sensibility protects sexual behaviours or any other kind of behaviour .

Wrong. It's freedom of association. Sex between consenting adults is not something the government or any other legal body has any right to deny to law-abiding citizens. It must, however, protect the ability of free people to associate with whomever they want.

For years kids were allowed to bully and misbehave in schools. Bullies were essentially seen as "victims too" and teachers could hardly do anything to them. Now the SAME people who protected bullies want to enact onerous laws against anyone not instep with the homosexual advance. The homosexual groups are themselves the biggest bullies around and people are starting to realize that.

Kids will be kids, and some kids should be stronger than they are, but that's no excuse for violence and abuse.

 

[3chordcharlie]

This law is likely meant to defend all those abusive assholes from PETA who just won't stop showing up at every slaughterhouse, cock-fight and barbecue whining about how wrong it is to race the lobsters across the kitchen to see which one gets boiled first!

I have no problem with one person telling another their opinion about homosexuality, even if this causes offence.

But human contact tends to be iterative: I do have a problem with the same interaction happening over and over again day after day, year after year. Gay adults don't refer to high school as 'hell' because someone once called them a 'i love you', it's because a dozen people called them i love you, and otherwise harassed them day in and day out for four years. And this is about to become 'protected speech'? F that.

What is needed is a 'Do Not Call' list for bigots.

 

[JS80]

Homosexuality is the last frontier of equal rights for minorities.

Gay people are a naturally occurring % of the human race, and have been since the beginning. It's like eye color or skin color or being short or tall. They are what they are, and fearing or belittling them is the same thing as fearing or belittling blacks, jews, brown people or blondes.

The statute just gives haters an excuse and cover for being haters. When called on it, they'll just claim it's their deeply held moral conviction, as if they actually have any.

Are you implying homosexuality is genetic?

 

[Ichigo]

Are you implying homosexuality is genetic?

I don't think that it's a simple case of dominant vs. recessive but studies that shown that there are genetic influences on sexual orientation (note that they are arguably not the only influences). So, your question is a bit too simplistic.

 

[1prophet]

Forcibly washing pigs ends up in inevitable failure no matter how just you may believe your cause is, you end up getting filthy and in the process the pigs decide to spread their filth everywhere else since now they appear washed in your eyes were before you could easily identify them.

 

[Broheim]

this, this and more of this!!! people need to get the sand out of their vags' and accept that some people have differences of opinion, and THAT's OKAY!

this is not about your right to an opinion, this is a law regarding bullying... do you have some sort of neurological condition that the rest of us should know about?

 

[MagickMan]

I'm not ignoring the premise. I'm just asking if there's documented evidence of it, that's all.

I'd like to see that as well. :hmm:

 

[TheVrolok]

Are you implying homosexuality is genetic?

Are you implying that it's a conscious choice?

 

[MagickMan]

Are you implying that it's a conscious choice?

I don't think it's so "black and white". Many seem to have a strong disposition towards being gay while others seem to look at it as doing whatever with whomever is available. Neither is wrong, but it does seem to be more of a choice for some.

 

[TheVrolok]

I don't think it's so "black and white". Many seem to have a strong disposition towards being gay while others seem to look at it as doing whatever with whomever is available. Neither is wrong, but it does seem to be more of a choice for some.

Completely anecdotal evidence from a straight individual?

 

[Jhhnn]

Are you implying homosexuality is genetic?

No. I'm saying that people's basic sexual orientation is formed by the age of 3 or so, long before there's an element of "choice", the same as with other personality traits. It may or may not have genetic elements, and is a naturally occurring phenomenon wrt the human race throughout history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

Of course, so are hatred & bigotry, the natural tools of Tyrants.

 

[MagickMan]

Completely anecdotal evidence from a straight individual?

Of course it is, that's why I used words like "seem" instead of "is". :hmm:

 

[sandorski]

Homosexual activity(note: Activity), IMO, is both Genetic and/or Choice. Some people are pre-disposed to it, others choose to do it. I suspect that those who Choose most often don't choose to do it exclusively, but they are more accurately Bisexual in practice.

I think "Sexual Identity" is a rather murky thing overall. I think it's murky due to the influence of Religion on the subject. That is: Claiming one activity is Morally Correct, while other activities as Morally Incorrect. Religion has chosen Pro-Creation as the most important aspect around Sexuality and thus has traditionally downplayed, even to the point of demonization, the pleasurable aspects of Sex. This, IMO, is why Affluent Societies almost always become more liberalized concerning Sexual Activity when the influence of Religion is lessened. Religious Practice itself becomes influenced by this liberalization.

To the Devoutly Religious this is a sure sign of the coming Apocalypse or some other tragic end. What they truly are fearing is not really that, but the End of their Religion. It is painful to give up one's Beliefs. So painful that many are willing to Die before doing so.

 

[Lithium381]

this is not about your right to an opinion, this is a law regarding bullying... do you have some sort of neurological condition that the rest of us should know about?

THIS IS ABOUT YOUR RIGHT TO AN OPINION. They are attempting to censor what can be said based on shifting PC social norms.

Person A: "I support homosexuality"
Person B: "I think homosexuality is wrong"

Somehow person A is 'in the right' and person b is now a bully? FOr having a difference of opinion? How is A no the bully in this case?

Person A: I think alqueida and the taliban are awesome
Person B: i don't like what the taliban stands for

Who's right? wrong? which one is the bully?


These kids are going to be crippled later in life and once they get to the real world they're not going to understand that 1) they are allowed to express themselves without censorship and 2) people may offend them, and they will be unequipped to deal with it.

 

[Ichigo]

THIS IS ABOUT YOUR RIGHT TO AN OPINION. They are attempting to censor what can be said based on shifting PC social norms.

Person A: "I support homosexuality"
Person B: "I think homosexuality is wrong"

Somehow person A is 'in the right' and person b is now a bully? FOr having a difference of opinion? How is A no the bully in this case?

Person A: I think alqueida and the taliban are awesome
Person B: i don't like what the taliban stands for

Who's right? wrong? which one is the bully?


These kids are going to be crippled later in life and once they get to the real world they're not going to understand that 1) they are allowed to express themselves without censorship and 2) people may offend them, and they will be unequipped to deal with it.

No one considers your example to be bullying.